So I’ve seen something that – to me – is one of the best bits of innovation I’ve seen in ages.

Admittedly, it’s something that has kind of been done before.

And has a limited audience.

And probably a short shelf life.

But I love it because it shows innovation is not just about what you do, but what you see is possible to do.

What am I talking about?

This …

Or, more specifically, this …

What you’re looking at are the handlebars to a Micro scooter, the sort of scooter favored by my 3 year old son Otis and wannabe-hipsters who really should know better.

Now normally these handlebars have some ‘grips’ on them like this …

… but recently I saw they offered an alternative range and it’s this that I’m blown away by.

You see someone saw that the Micro Scooter handlebars are made of a hollow metal tube.

So far, so boring.

But what someone realised was that with a hollow tubular handlebar, they could make a grip that looked like this …

For those who can’t quite tell, it’s a grip that turns the handlebars into a horn, like this:

I know it seems a small thing and I know you might not be as impressed by it as me, but I think it’s bloody genius … both for the fun it adds to the scooter and – more impressively – for someone seeing possibility in something most people would ignore.

And that’s my problem with a lot of what adland regards as ‘innovation’, because in many cases the starting point is to do something totally new rather than to see the possibilities in our everyday World.

Which explains why our industry often comes up with bullshit like Peggy while other people/companies/brands come up with brilliantly simple but effective handlebar grip horns.

So I know that the first reaction most people will have reading the title of this post is, “Pot. Kettle. Black.”

And I get it, I can talk. A lot.

But the thing is, in actual client meetings, I’m much more surgical.

There’s a couple of reasons for this.

The first is I am genuinely interested to hear what others in the room think.

The second is it allows me the time to truly consider my point of view in consideration of all we’ve heard.

And thirdly, I can ensure my POV has the opportunity to be shaped by others perspectives that I may not have considered.

However there are 2 occasions where I don’t follow these rules.

The first is when the room requires some sort of ignition to commence debate.

I know we live in times where everyone seems to have a point of view on everything, but there are occasions when silence happens and when it does, my role is to kick things off so a topic finds its natural rhythm and momentum with the rest of the attendees.

The other time I enter the fray earlier is when we have the self-appointed expert.

Now as I’ve said many times, I’m a huge fan of ‘intelligent naivety’ … people who experience/situation affords them a unique perspective on a subject matter, despite not being employed or trained in it.

For example, years ago when I was working with Dreamworks to define what ‘entertainment’ was, one of the people we invited who had a fascinating perspective, was a mother of 8 kids who regarded anything that kept her kids quiet and still for 15 minutes was the pinnacle of entertainment.

But I’m not talking about these folk.

The beauty of them is they tend to speak very much from their personal perspective, situation and experience and never try to claim their opinion is valid for a different set of circumstances.

I’m talking about the people who don’t understand that their perspective is simply their perspective rather than something that is universal and can be transported to others.

The millionaires who talk about what it’s like to be a kid in a low income home, based on what their kid likes.

The ad folk who talk about what life is like in the suburbs because they read an article about it in The Guardian.

The white guys who talk about understanding what it’s like to be an African American because they aren’t racists.

The men who tell women what they want because “my Mum was one”.

The businessmen who talk about what an ad should look like because they know business.

And while those people absolutely have a right to an opinion, they need to be reminded it’s just that – an opinion, not a fact – because if you let them talk incessantly, they don’t just have the ability to derail a meeting, they have the ability to get otherwise sane people to agree to decisions that are utterly car-crash. Remember Pepsi?

Anyone who has ever read this blog would know the last thing I’m about is thought leadership.

Maybe thought rambling, but not thought leadership.

However a company recently reached out to me about that very subject.

Not to hear my perspective on a particular subject, but to offer to tell me my perspective on a particular subject.

Is this AI on a whole new level?

No, it’s a company who apparently doesn’t like small talk and wants to get straight-to-the-point about offering me the chance to have them write an opinion piece for me and then get it published.

Not my actual opinion, I should add … but one they know they can shove in any random magazine because they’re desperate for content and get me to pay them for the privilege.

Oh, they drop some great magazine names.

Fast Company. Forbes. Tech Crunch.

But we all know the reality is 99% of the articles will be in stuff like the West Bridgford Gazette and the Illawarra Mercury.

I would love to know how many of these things they do?

How many ‘thought leaders’ are actually thought outsourcers?

And I guess I will because I’ve written to them to say ‘this looks amazing, please can you give me more information’, even though the reality is I already feel enough of an imposter without paying these bastards to rub it in.

Or should I say I wasn’t sure until I had a stamp of my signature made so I could stamp colleagues birthday cards to show that personal touch without much effort, as demonstrated by Leigh’s errrrrm, forehead.

So if you think Monday is horrible, be grateful it isn’t being spent in the same office as me.

In some ways it seems it was just a few weeks and in other ways, it feels like a lifetime ago.

While it was absolutely time to start a new adventure – something LA and Deutsch have kindly given me – I still miss China and Wieden very much because I had 7 years of brilliant things happen in my life [such as this] and career [such as this and this] there … though I have it on good authority this sentimentality is only one way, mainly because those stickers I left behind are still being discovered.

One of the best things about moving to America was that we were able to bring most of the stuff we had in storage around the World back to one place for the first time in over 15 years.

While opening boxes upon boxes of DVD documentaries was a bit heartbreaking given they are now all available online for free, there was some delight and one of those was getting my hands back on this …

Sign of the Times is a brilliant book by photographer Martin Parr.

Martin Parr is one of Britain’s most significant photographers, best known for his sharp eye and cheeky sense of humour.

Over his 30+ career, he has focused on capturing ordinary people doing ordinary things and because of this, he has become known as a social commentator and recorder of Britain’s finely nuanced class system.

In the 90’s, the BBC aired a documentary called Signs of the Times.

In some respects it was an early version of reality television … a fly-on-the-wall documentary that aimed to document the personal tastes of people in their British homes.

50 people were chosen from 2000 applicants with a real focus on capturing a diverse range of ages, races, genders and social backgrounds.

Anyway, from that show came the book and anyone who grew up in the 90’s in the UK who sees it will resonate with so much of it.

Not just in terms of the aesthetic, but the energy, values and priorities of the times.

I’ve long been fascinated with this approach – we even did a similar type of project at Wieden in Shanghai – because for me, it not only helps communicate who we’re talking to in ways others can truly connect to but – because of the contextual lens – it provides additional insight into how the audience lives and what they value.

It’s why it was so important for me to make a coffee table book of photographs from our recent America In The Raw study, because while some probably saw it as an indulgence – especially given you needed to see the accompanying presentation to truly understand what we found and what we think brands can/should do – my view is that without it, you can’t truly connect to the stories that shaped our thinking and then all we’ll end up with is a deck rather than the influence for change.

Whenever I’m asked to speak at something, the first thing I think is ‘why?’

The second thing I think about is ‘what right have I got to talk about this subject?’

And the final thing is ‘what am I going to talk about’.

In the case of Pentagram, I didn’t know what I could say that would be of any interest of them.

Then I remembered the only reason they asked me to come is because of my relationship to a certain, famous rock band so instead of doing a deck – where, let’s be honest, they would be judging the design of each slide rather than listening to what I said – I bought 12 iconic albums on vinyl [they’re the ones in the picture above] and talked about the relationship they had with the music and the fans of the music under the heading, ‘Design is not decoration’.

Now I have no idea if they actually learnt anything from my talk, but it certainly created a bunch of conversation and debate and for me, that’s a big win.

Actually, getting out alive was the big win, but seeing some of the most talented design people in the World talk about the relationship between music, design and fans was something I’d pay for just to witness.

Which is why one of the best lessons I learned about strategy is less about what you are going to do and more about what you’re going to sacrifice.